F&C set for growth slowdown

Jeremy Tigue, the fund manager behind the £2bn-plus Foreign & Colonial (F&C) investment trust, yesterday said profit and dividend growth from the companies it invests in is set to slow down in 2012 alongside fewer takeover bids. Last year was tough for F&C, with net asset value per share down 6.7 per cent to 322.86p. But since then markets have rallied and the asset value has more than recovered all last year's losses to stand at 350.31p a share. The trust also saw its private-equity portfolio move from eating cash to churning it out towards the end of last year, and enjoyed significant dividend income from major companies it is invested in such as Vodafone and the return to payouts by BP. That enabled the investment management group to lift its own dividend by 5.2 per cent to 7.1p a share, the 41st consecutive year it has increased the payout.